Norway’s Statoil (STO) is sitting on a new discovery in the North Sea that could contain between 40 million and 150 million recoverable barrels of oil equivalent, the company said last week.
Statoil announced the discovery in its Gullfaks license area in the Shetland Group/Lista Formation in the North Sea. The Norwegian company is the operator of the license, with a 70% interest, in partnership with Petoro, a minority partner with 30%.
The 40-150 million recoverable barrels estimate is still under a “high degree of uncertainty”, with additional appraisals ongoing to confirm the findings.
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According to Statoil, the Gullfaks finds are younger and shallower deposits compared to its Brent Group reservoir, which is the primary deposit in the license area.
Gullfaks is being developed through three permanent installations which have produced over 2.4 billion barrels of oil and over 56 billion cubic meters of gas to date.
“The discovery provides new volumes that can give high-value production in a short time as well as new promising perspectives for the field and the installations, Oystein Michelsen, Statoil executive vice president for development and production in Norway, said in a statement.
By. Charles Kennedy of Oilprice.com
